Town Builder - 98 - Delivery

Chapter 98:

“Well, that could have gone better,” I grumbled as we were kicked out of the water realm.

Black Beauty laughed at me good naturedly, “You are not the only one who died a few times.”

“Six. I died six times, Black Beauty. That is more than I have died in my entire time in the game so far.” I said as I turned and started walking toward Malcum’s walls. 

Although the experience penalty for dying during an Incursion was less, I still emerged with a negative gain toward level 43. I couldn’t be pushed down to level 41, which was a blessing because I certainly could have. On the positive side, you didn’t lose skill experience from an Incursion assault or defense, and due to the nature of the powerful opponents, I had made gains in my combat skills.

I also lost only a single item, and it was easily replaced. In the adventuring world, you dropped all the gear you were wearing. In a dungeon, you didn’t lose any of your gear, respawning at the entrance with the gear still equipped. In an Incursion event, I found out you only dropped a single piece of random gear—if you were lucky and the piece of gear was soulbound, you lost nothing. By operating in guild groups, your mates could pick up the piece of gear you dropped upon your death.

I lost my boots after we breached the walls and the defenders cast a sandstorm spell. I became separated from my guildmates in the confusion and ended up battling two mermen with Flash Fire and Narrow Miss, two outer members of the guild. Both were ranged mages and I had been forced to tank the elite defenders. After I fell to a two-pronged spear, they fell shortly after me.

Black Beauty patted my back, “It was fun though, right?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Crazy ass fun after I turned down the pain feedback. How did the guild do?”

We both turned to review the guild chat logs, and we accessed the guild warehouse to see what loot not only our raid team received, but also what the other teams organized by Mad Dog obtained. Our more powerful players had been in Phoenix’s Rest for the defense, and it was clear they performed much better than we did.

“Wow,” Black Beauty said in amazement. “We picked up some unique gear sets for level thirty. Mad Dog said it was from the officers in the city that defended the inner city.”

I found what Black Beauty was referring to. There were two complete sets of very rare five-piece heavy armor called Tidal Defense. The armor appeared to be shaped like seashells and had green translucent sections that gave it a pleasant aesthetic. We had pieces from other epic sets called Riptide Mantle and Ocean’s Abyss. The first was a five-piece mage set that fortified water magic attack and defense, while the second set did the same for chaos magic. 

“The forums are going nuts,” a guildmate near us said. “The equipment people picked up is insane. This is going to make people want to launch raids into the other realms.”

Black Beauty frowned, “Maybe. Larger guilds can send enough players to have effective raids, but we had the advantage with players arrayed for a defense to overwhelm the city walls during the Incursion.”

“Also, if we were in another realm, it would block all communications,” Golden Storm said as he joined us. Mad Dog was only a few steps behind, a full canine smile on his face from his success.

“Mate, totally epic. I just heard from some friends that Disciples of the Horde managed to capture a city in the water realm!” Mad Dog said with some awe.

“What does that entail?” I asked, also amazed.

“It means they have a foothold—the only first and only foothold over there,” Golden Storm said. “We think they will have difficulty defending it from constant attacks, but once they get their rep high enough with the locals, they can start working on novel quest chains over there. Even though they are the strongest guild, this will make them a target.”

Mad Dog’s post-battle adrenaline faded. “I have an insider who thinks the blokes will be able to transfer between realms with some guild hall upgrades. We can’t worry about others; we have our own problems. How is the skyship progressing?”

“We could finish it in two weeks, but we are drawing it out. You can talk to Ghostly Mermaid, she is dealing with Eternal Legacy directly,” I replied. I tilted my head back and forth, “Our skyship is going to be completed by the time the Grand War starts, but we are trying to make sure it is ready for a fight.”

Black Beauty added, “The Venerable Llamas captured a small skyship, but the repercussions were their rep dropped so far in the negative, they cannot land it anywhere to repair it.” 

“No, mate. Don’t even think about it.” Mad Dog said in a warning tone. I hadn’t even thought about it, but now I did. We could offer them a place to repair their stolen skyship, but then our secret base would be out.

“How many skyships will there be in the Grand War?” I asked Black Beauty. 

“Not many. For players, fewer than a dozen. I have half my rouges digging up information on the Last Grand War. Kuba has his acquisition specialists looking for detailed accounts of the battle,” she replied tentatively. “I have to check on things—if you can build me a second Rogues Gallery…”

“It is in the queue for Goatyah,” I replied, rolling my eyes. She had reached her cap of 20 rogues from the Rogue's Gallery who were effective NPC spies. She rotated a few back to the hidden facility under my Lord’s Manor to train them. I wasn’t sure, but I think Black Beauty effectively gave the NPC agents mini-quests with loose parameters. The only issue was that the NPCs needed to return to the Rogue’s Gallery to file a report.

“Everything is always in the queue,” she replied teasingly.

“Well, our construction efforts will start to go a lot faster when our builders can get their skills up to expert rank. Their level of growth is too slow,” I answered in the same teasing manner.

“And that is my cue to get to work,” Golden Storm said as he departed. Golden Storm was responsible for the crafting division in the guild, including the builders’ advancement. 

We briefly celebrated the overall success of the guild in the Invasion event before breaking up. I returned to my Lord’s Manor as I needed to draft a number of plans to put up on the player auction. I had about eighty game days before my payment for my real-world body was due. Even with paying off the admins, I was still well ahead of schedule. 

The biggest problem was that the conversion rate of game gold to real-world currency was starting to slip a little. As more and more players joined the game, it became easier for higher-level players to earn gold. However, the opposite was not true; the admins had not changed the cost of buying gold in the game, although there was talk of increasing the daily limit of ten thousand gold per player.

I spent half my days drafting and half my days working on the construction of the legendary library. I was betting on the next Incursion for level experience. I felt a bit left out as I perused the guild's chat logs. Mad Dog was directing teams to work on specific quests, and our slow-growing guild was active throughout the region. 

We were farming six dungeons regularly to supply our budding crafters and NPCs in Malcum, but it all felt very precarious. It wouldn’t take much of a disruption to break the chain and put us on a spiral. The great news was that the Crypt of the Phoenix King was a massive gold flow for us. I even directed that we utilize resources to build two more defensive towers, bringing the total to four. We also added one of the towers to Malcum and one to the bluff overlooking the shipyards.

Almost on cue, I got a voice message request from Frost Siren. I accepted. “Is our steam skyship complete?” She said, getting right to the point. Her tone was very demanding and unwelcome.

“Twenty days,” I replied, adding two days to when we had planned to give it to her.

“My eyes on the docks say it is almost complete,” Frost Siren said tersely.

“Well you should get those eyes checked, the internal components need to be built, installed and tested.” I retorted but was cursing inwardly. I had walked by the cradle, and it looked like the exterior had been completed. It meant her spies had bypassed security, and we would have to get a Watchtower Obelisk built in Goatyah to see players who were sneaking around. I did not want to reallocate more resources and builders.

Frost Siren paused, and I knew she was upset because she had slipped to 5th in the guild ranking after the water realm Invasion. The Silver Linings Playbook was ranked 509th, and that was up from 592nd before the last Invasion. We were a solid mid-tier guild that operated in a very unimportant region of the vast game map.

“Twenty days,” she said hotly and broke the connection. I would probably transfer it to her in nineteen days. Mad Dog had advised me not to anger her, as she could still crush us if she wanted to. 

After I told Mad Dog of the conversation, we talked over a meal at the Lord’s Manor and explained it from his perspective. “She bought that guild and all the players in it, mate. They used to be a top-three guild, which has its own prestige but if players are not happy with the slide they might depart, contracts be damned.” 

“Are they really doing that badly?” I asked. The forums had plenty of mentions of Eternal Legacy’s top teams. They had even defeated a World Boss recently, a giant, scaled, frog-like creature.

Mad Dog elaborated. “Their guild power is growing quickly, but other guilds are growing even faster. The Irreverent Blades, a Brazilian-based guild, took over a large swath of low-level land. The land seemed useless, but they soon discovered two deep dungeons on it, one twenty-three levels deep and the other nineteen. They were perfect for newbie players, and their guild welcomed all newcomers, no matter their nationality. They swelled to over a million members in weeks. They might not have many powerful players, but they can swarm more powerful guilds in an extended fight—or at least make them waste a lot of resources. 

They did that very thing to the Demon Scholars when the Scholars tried to take control of the dungeons; they overwhelmed them. Not only did the Demon Scholars fail to take the dungeons, but they also disbanded in shame from the attempt.”

“A million players?” I gasped. I had heard of the Irreverent Blades but had not realized how many players they had attracted.

Mad Dog spoke practically. “It is closer to one point five million now, a the reason they are ranked 5th now. You need to understand that guilds like Eternal Legacy pay their players a wage, so their growth is limited, as you can only afford to pay so many players. Also, top players could bounce if another guild offered them more. No matter what people say, loyalty cannot be purchased. The game contract system has been helpful in retention, but now a few months into the game, getting players to sign a contract with steep penalties if they leave is getting harder.”

“And what about Silver Linings Playbook?” I asked before he left. It was an open-ended question since we had talked a lot about our guild over meals.

Mad Dog sipped from his mug. “You know that is why our inner members count is so small. Everyone who eventually becomes an inner member has overcome something difficult in their life, which brings us closer—friendship, family, and loyalty—money a close second.” He grinned and patted me on the shoulder as he left to log off.

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The game world had settled into a tense peace among the guilds as we all awaited the next Incursion/Invasion event. The Ape Incursion had destroyed many guild strongholds, and after the Incursion, guilds put up hundreds of thousands of gold to build up defenses, my Duchy included. We learned Big Al, the gargantuan ape general from the attack on Phoenix’s Rest, had managed to travel nearly five thousand miles and help fortify an NPC city that another general of his people had conquered. The city, Catania, had drawn in hundreds of apes that failed to retreat to their own realm, and it was now one of the strongest cities in the region. Reports on the forums said the NPCs were being won over by their new overlords as well. Some enterprising players were working on building a positive rep with the apemen so they could travel to their realm and set up a base of operations.

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Eight days before the Incursion event, we learned that we were going to be attacked by the insectoid realm. We discovered this because someone had taken the talent that alerted you about the next event. They had apparently attempted to sell this information but didn’t possess a contract ability to prevent the recipient from sharing it. The old saying that a secret can only be kept by two people if one of them is dead was true.

Mad Dog found the whole thing very amusing in the chat rooms as the two players and their guilds went hard at each other. What this did give us was a chance to prepare for the assault. There was a lot of information from the beta testing on what the insectoids would bring through the Incursion rifts. 

From the first event, we knew the infantry was made up of bipedal ant-men with six arms. They had large beetles that spat thick, viscous acid balls. They had flying cavalry on winged beetles. And finally, they had large prey mantis soldiers with lightning-quick reflexes. They had no magic attacks, but the martial skill of these troops was deadly. 

Without magic, they wouldn’t be able to clear the field of battle of traps like normal or defend against siege weapons with shields. It was hopefully going to be one of the easier Incursions, but I still planned to use my talent to weaken them. We had also experienced our first population decline in Malcum from the last Incursion, as players migrated to other cities to better match their level. 

Phoenix’s Rest was still growing as the dungeon had been scaled twice since we opened it to the public. Once intentionally by us and once by an overzealous party from the Nocturnal Knights guild. We banned them from the dungeon gatehouse and all shops in the Duchy; since they were a small guild, there was nothing they could do in retaliation.

The steam skyship was completed five days before the NPC auction for Eternal Legacy. Even though it was complete, I told Frost Siren she could take delivery the day of the NPC auction outside of Stillwater. I didn’t want a large number of her guild entering Goatyah again. We had received all the essences from them, so this would close the contract.

To obfuscate that we were building a warship in the hidden cave, we laid out the hull of a second transport next to the completed one to make it appear we were constructing our own. Ghostly Mermaid thought it looked suspicious if it did not seem we were attempting to build something, given how valuable they would be for questing. You could charter a skyship, but they would only land in a town or city—not deep in the wilds.

The NPC auction was just as crazy as last time, but I was smart enough to make my bids without a committee this time. The process went a lot quicker, and I focused entirely on the wood craftsmen. My budget for the eighteen bids was fifty thousand gold, which should get me five experts and thirteen novices in the various wood crafts—further enhancing crossbow bolt manufacture, paper making, and construction.

The preliminary auction went well, as I secured fifteen of the eighteen targeted NPCs before the bidding phase started. It was not surprising that all three of my NPCs were experts. The medium level of the player population was around fourteen, while the average level had reached seventeen. Once players reached level twenty-three, their skills could reach expert rank, and maybe the cost of expert NPC in the auction would finally cool.

There were a lot more tokens used in this auction as well. Someone had found a way to track tokens by counting the number of NPCs in the entire list, and then just before bidding closed, recording the number again. This cycle, twenty-two NPCs disappeared from the list. That was probably the only way I would be able to afford a master or grand master NPC in the future.

I ended up going over budget by seven thousand five hundred gold, but I secured all three experts. I checked on the skyship delivery and smirked as Ghostly Mermaid and Danny were live streaming the maiden flight of the steam-powered skyship. It was extremely loud and slow based on what I was watching. Even though it was being handed over, Danny and Ghostly Mermaid maintained enormous smiles the entire time.

The handoff was anticlimactic as no one interfered and Eternal Legacy didn’t try to pull any deception. Maybe the live stream played into that a little bit. The skyship was fully functional, and there was nothing wrong with it; I claimed when my interface indicated the contract had been completed. Soon everyone would know that Eternal Legacy had their own skyship.

Danny was in Stillwater when she opened a video chat, she was going to portal back. “Tallis! Success! I have had twenty players stop me and ask me to build them a skyship too!”

“Take orders!” I half-joked. The problem with the steam skyships was that every part needed to be manufactured individually. Mass production was not an option.

Danny wasn’t deterred, “As long as the next skyship is ours. We can probably charge ten times what it costs to build.” 

“It is your enterprise, Danny. You and Mermaid figure it out.” I closed the video chat and was happy for them. I hadn’t thought much of Danny’s endeavor when she first recruited the dwarven engineers, but it was turning into something special and might be the advantage we needed in the Grand War.

Now we needed to prepare for the next Incursion in three days.

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